On one hand we want to be dominant militarily and economically in Europe ( the elites) and on the other hand most of the public knows we are being fleeced. We will do no more about this issue than we have on our southern border issue.
Thank you! Europe has a dim future. They are no longer fully free, having suppressed speech for years now. We're I a young man again I would by no means fight for them.
Europe and the U.S. have dim futures because of bad choices. Looking back from 2023 to WWI at the help we have given and the current outcomes in the here and now with my recently acquired jaded world view (of which I am not proud), I can't say now that Europe was worthy of our help then. And certainly not now. America first and elsewhere second, if it serves our national interest. I wouldn't go or even send blankets unless I was knew positively that I wasn't being lied too when told it was "to serve our national interests".
Those who are unwilling to do what is required to protect themselves have no business expecting others to do it for them. At the rate things are going they will all be parts of the Caliphate by the end of the century.
When my father was stationed in German '66-'69, we saw the beginnings of the slide. It really got going once the socialist coalition won in '69 elections. It took awhile for the momentum to build, but by the late 90s, the Bundeswehr was a shadow of itself. Ossie stupidity really cut in with Schroeder and Merkel. Germany, I think, is a lot cause. Not even Putin's war in Ukraine has made a dent in their thinking.
As long as politicians here and in Europe fritter away money on social programs for their increasing indolent and grabby constituents, nothing will get done because a politician's survival trumps everything else.
I agree that the Europeans have NO clue about the United States. Hell, the political classes in both the EU and the US have no clue about their own countries. I'm getting a definite "1848" vibe...that major political turmoil is in the wind. Time to get my rent-a-guillotine business started.
Having said that, three thoughts occur to me:
1. The center of gravity of NATO has shifted eastward. The former Warsaw Pact states are now the front line. This is a Good Thing, as they don't have the self-loathing of Western Europe.
2. Europe gets less from their defense Euro than they ought. European nations regard defense acquisition as an industrial subsidy, with weapons as a side-benefit.
3. If you really want the Americans to stay, think about paying them. A hundred billion Euro in the DOD budget would be mighty persuasive.
A proposal - Yes, we will support our NATO allies if they are attacked, as stated in the treaty, the speed and depth of response to match the attacked country’s proven performance in protecting themselves and responding in defense of others. Said performance to be measured by two variables: the percentage of GDP spent on defense, and hours late to the front line with a credible force. Match the U.S. and we’ll be there in a heartbeat, kicking butt. Slack off that commitment and we’ll get to you in a week or three……maybe four or five, with the DC Capitol Police.
The problem isn’t just military. Because money is fungible and defense a first responsibility, the American taxpayer has been footing the bill for the ridiculous European welfare state. If we left (which we should; every European country is wealthy enough to support its own defense, and every European country is technically adept enough to create the deterrent that Americans (really) are there to provide), Europe would have to somehow pay both its own defense AND its welfare state. Good luck with that.
In reality, there’s no need to defend a demi-continent with a total fertility rate far below replacement. If they don’t believe in their own future enough to populate it, who cares if that future is “free,” and why pay for it?
This is so clearly true, and I am not at all sure it will change in my lifetime. Some men who liberated Europe in WWII (including my deceased Dad) now have great-great-grandchildren serving in Europe. Who could have imagined such a thing?
Now that I think of it, my Dad was born in 1918, there were many men born around 1900 who served during WWII. They could have great-great-great grandchildren now serving in Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Europeans ought to settle their own conflicts, and the U.S should get the puck out of there.
Tbf, middle and working class Europeans pay higher taxes to pay for their welfare states; it's just that the number of contributors is getting too small for the benefits.
Correct. And in 15-20 years, when the only new entrants to the workforce are illiterate muz incapable of adding value to any first world economy through manufacturing, services, distribution or farming, there will be no one left to pay the welfare on which these immigrants live. Leaving only war & starvation within Europe.
Two power polars of the now multipolar world are Europe and the U.S. Both are fading badly economically due in large part to Green Nude Eel energy policies that are destroying the economies EVs, wind and solar (see Germany), reliance on as noted cheap Russian POL (Germany / EU) and Middle East / Venezuela (U.S.). As economies decline, so does defense spending as a priority. So, it is arguably national suicide to head down the Green Energy path. The saying that the Greens are watermelons (green on the surface, Red (communist) on the inside) has a lot of truth. Societal decay and rot come to all empires in history; it's a well documented pattern of human behavior. A casual glance will see adversary poles (Russia, China, Iran) in the multipolar world contributing to the social decay as well not just with energy but other means (Tik Tok, etc). Oddly enough, at time with the assistance of our own government. Very strange! Or not...
Its a moot point anyway. When the United States blow up Nordstream and ended European access to cheap Russian gas that act of terror ENDED any chance of european re-armament. Factories need energy, lots of it and affordable. Europe will soon be without any industry...
It was most likely the Russian gas company. They had already shut the valves feeding the pipelines, but there was a article in the contract that they would have to compensate customers o\for gas not shipped. Consequently, the gas company themselves destroyed the pipelines so they could declare force majeure and not have tp compensate anyone.
Concur with Europeans having no clue about the size of the USA.
During my time as an F-14 FRS instructor at NAS Oceana, we had Brit exchange crews come through as instructors. To a man, the first time they flew a cross-country from Oceana to Miramar, they could not believe how big this country is. One even said, once we got out to Miramar, “We’d be deep into the Soviet Union if we flew this same distance east from Great Britain.”
Going the other way, a few years ago, I had a work trip to the UK. Flew into Heathrow, grabbed a rental car, and headed to Bristol. I had glanced at the map. It looked like roughly half way across the country. I settled in for a long drive. Couple hours later, and I was there. Only 103 miles according to Google maps. I can drive east twice that far and still be in my state...
Europe is finished. So why bother spending any money on defense instead of enjoying what little time is left? The barbarians will only be meaner if you resist.
I read an article just this morning about a similar issue; the Canadian Navy is apparently in deep trouble. Lack of maintenance, low manning, low recruiting, low budgets, all because Trudeau wants to chase leftist policies, and because they're right here north of the USA, so we'd certainly help them.
But Canada, too, is being invaded, and the "elites" in Toronto either don't care or are aiding the Muslim invaders. Britain is already gone, and Ireland is in the news this week for this very reason. Scandinavia is besieged, Germany has being overrun, and the invaders are coming to Italy. The Italian Navy needs to lay a million mines along the North African coast, and sink every ship that makes it through. And sink/seize the motherships that the NGOs use to transport Libyans to Lampedusa.
Meanwhile, if you look at the actual demographics of these areas, the notion that they're being "overrun" is ridiculous. Sorry, but I find it very difficult to buy that less than 10% of the population is going to stage a hostile takeover, even if they all wanted too, which I doubt.
The problems caused by doing that would be far worse than the problems caused by just making them play by the same rules everyone else does. The Finns have done that and they've had fairly minimal issues, IIRC.
Given that they aren't, in fact, unassimilable (and I notice that you haven't pointed out where I was wrong about the Finns), the premise of your question is false. Please peddle your nonsense elsewhere.
You don't seem up to date with what the Finns are doing (or the Danes & Dutch for that matter). Or the crime issues this unassimilable mass has brought to Nordic countries. Or the definition of assimilation.
Swedes are too polite to physically resist, and the Muslims are mostly targeting - and raping - "helpless" women. And Swedish police, like British police, have no intention to actually PUNISHING the criminals. So it doesn't take many "invaders" to terrify the target population.
Eventually, the Swedish men - like Irishmen, this week - will begin to fight back. But by then, it will be a civil war, but the civil authorities, like the Muslim Taoiseach today and the Muslim Mayor of London, will be fighting against the natives and supporting the invaders.
Given that the current Taoiseach of Ireland was born in Ireland, his parents were Catholic immigrants from India, and he's gay and describes himself as non-religious, I think your perceptions and reality are not in alignment with each other.
Nope...its a nice fantasy...but only the USN has this capability. This has all but been publicly admitted. Some Ukranians in a stolen boat is just propaganda fiction for the sheep...
Deep enough to require specialized gear, in a place were water conditions are a concern and a target requiring very large tonnage of specialized explosives. You load that gear off a ship...not a stolen yacht... We will save the extensive and strange presence of USN air and sea assets in the area before and during vthe attack for another posting....
Very large tonnage of explosives? Why, for Pete's sake? The steel on the pipeline is strong enough to withstand the pressure of the gas, and MAYBE strong enough not to be punctured by an anchor strike, but why should they have made it armored? That would drive up the cost of the pipeline by a few orders of magnitude. No. It wouldn't have taken a ton of explosives, and probably not more than a few hundred pounds, to cause the pipeline to rupture - and then the gas pressure would have done the rest.
Finally the Porch has taken up a tactical question in my area of expertise (I'm an amateur in matters of naval aviation, surface and sub-surface combatants, etc): the Nordstream attack happened in ~230ft of water.
Effectively targeting a pipeline in that depth range objectively requires the following capabilities:
-basic intel/OSINT capability
-basic decompression diving
-moderate underwater survey
-basic small boat competence
-moderate underwater demolitions
-moderate emergency medical plan and logistics (optional based on risk tolerance)
Anyone is free to form their own opinion about how many / which nations (and non-nations) possess the necessary mix, but if you think it's limited to the US you are batshit insane. There are half a dozen civilian wreck diving crews in NJ who could do it with a week of demo training and approvals to buy the right (commercially available) explosive materials.
The Bundeswehr short of assault rifles for "political reasons"? This in the country where the assault rifle was invented? I can understand why reliance on the American military started in the wake of WW2 and the advent of the Cold War; a region that saw land, demographics, and culture nearly wiped out in two disastrous wars, faced with a third even more (potentially) devastating war? Sure, let's rely on the Americans, they can do anything! And I guess if you let the Americans worry about the Big Bad Bear to the east, well, you can concentrate on other things. Wow. Tangled web. Thanks for this post!
A German on a military weapons forum said there was a lot of BS in the article. Said lots more rifles than that, also lots of troops use MP7 rather than rifles.
The U. S. is, and has been, a maritime nation. It is through a robust Navy that we best support world stability. Let the regions take care of themselves while we worry about security and free commerce at sea. That is also compatible with a robust far East policy.
Our "robust Navy" is in decline, and we can't maintain our ships. Can't, or won't; the difference isn't important. Sal himself has noted that American ships these days are embarrassingly rusty.
I totally agree. The point of my post was that we need to get off our rear ends and focus on reinvigoratiing our Navy. It has been, and is, the key to global stability. Without freedom of the seas, the world economy and all that goes with it is in jeopardy. Wwe need yards, Sailors, and more ships---soon.
On one hand we want to be dominant militarily and economically in Europe ( the elites) and on the other hand most of the public knows we are being fleeced. We will do no more about this issue than we have on our southern border issue.
Thank you! Europe has a dim future. They are no longer fully free, having suppressed speech for years now. We're I a young man again I would by no means fight for them.
Europe and the U.S. have dim futures because of bad choices. Looking back from 2023 to WWI at the help we have given and the current outcomes in the here and now with my recently acquired jaded world view (of which I am not proud), I can't say now that Europe was worthy of our help then. And certainly not now. America first and elsewhere second, if it serves our national interest. I wouldn't go or even send blankets unless I was knew positively that I wasn't being lied too when told it was "to serve our national interests".
Those who are unwilling to do what is required to protect themselves have no business expecting others to do it for them. At the rate things are going they will all be parts of the Caliphate by the end of the century.
When my father was stationed in German '66-'69, we saw the beginnings of the slide. It really got going once the socialist coalition won in '69 elections. It took awhile for the momentum to build, but by the late 90s, the Bundeswehr was a shadow of itself. Ossie stupidity really cut in with Schroeder and Merkel. Germany, I think, is a lot cause. Not even Putin's war in Ukraine has made a dent in their thinking.
As long as politicians here and in Europe fritter away money on social programs for their increasing indolent and grabby constituents, nothing will get done because a politician's survival trumps everything else.
And that's why Europe and deep blue America are doomed.
I agree that the Europeans have NO clue about the United States. Hell, the political classes in both the EU and the US have no clue about their own countries. I'm getting a definite "1848" vibe...that major political turmoil is in the wind. Time to get my rent-a-guillotine business started.
Having said that, three thoughts occur to me:
1. The center of gravity of NATO has shifted eastward. The former Warsaw Pact states are now the front line. This is a Good Thing, as they don't have the self-loathing of Western Europe.
2. Europe gets less from their defense Euro than they ought. European nations regard defense acquisition as an industrial subsidy, with weapons as a side-benefit.
3. If you really want the Americans to stay, think about paying them. A hundred billion Euro in the DOD budget would be mighty persuasive.
#3 is a great idea. Huzzah!
A proposal - Yes, we will support our NATO allies if they are attacked, as stated in the treaty, the speed and depth of response to match the attacked country’s proven performance in protecting themselves and responding in defense of others. Said performance to be measured by two variables: the percentage of GDP spent on defense, and hours late to the front line with a credible force. Match the U.S. and we’ll be there in a heartbeat, kicking butt. Slack off that commitment and we’ll get to you in a week or three……maybe four or five, with the DC Capitol Police.
The problem isn’t just military. Because money is fungible and defense a first responsibility, the American taxpayer has been footing the bill for the ridiculous European welfare state. If we left (which we should; every European country is wealthy enough to support its own defense, and every European country is technically adept enough to create the deterrent that Americans (really) are there to provide), Europe would have to somehow pay both its own defense AND its welfare state. Good luck with that.
In reality, there’s no need to defend a demi-continent with a total fertility rate far below replacement. If they don’t believe in their own future enough to populate it, who cares if that future is “free,” and why pay for it?
This is so clearly true, and I am not at all sure it will change in my lifetime. Some men who liberated Europe in WWII (including my deceased Dad) now have great-great-grandchildren serving in Europe. Who could have imagined such a thing?
The fertility piece isn’t just NATO / Europe.
https://x.com/nonebusinesshey/status/1729710339598569513?s=20
Now that I think of it, my Dad was born in 1918, there were many men born around 1900 who served during WWII. They could have great-great-great grandchildren now serving in Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Europeans ought to settle their own conflicts, and the U.S should get the puck out of there.
Yeah. My dad, 1912. Pacific. LST. 19 first assault landings.
& Geo Wash: stay outta Europe’s wars. Woody Wilson: make the world for the GAE. Wars ever since.
Tbf, middle and working class Europeans pay higher taxes to pay for their welfare states; it's just that the number of contributors is getting too small for the benefits.
Correct. And in 15-20 years, when the only new entrants to the workforce are illiterate muz incapable of adding value to any first world economy through manufacturing, services, distribution or farming, there will be no one left to pay the welfare on which these immigrants live. Leaving only war & starvation within Europe.
Two power polars of the now multipolar world are Europe and the U.S. Both are fading badly economically due in large part to Green Nude Eel energy policies that are destroying the economies EVs, wind and solar (see Germany), reliance on as noted cheap Russian POL (Germany / EU) and Middle East / Venezuela (U.S.). As economies decline, so does defense spending as a priority. So, it is arguably national suicide to head down the Green Energy path. The saying that the Greens are watermelons (green on the surface, Red (communist) on the inside) has a lot of truth. Societal decay and rot come to all empires in history; it's a well documented pattern of human behavior. A casual glance will see adversary poles (Russia, China, Iran) in the multipolar world contributing to the social decay as well not just with energy but other means (Tik Tok, etc). Oddly enough, at time with the assistance of our own government. Very strange! Or not...
Greatest threats to Europe:
1. WEFers
2. Migrants
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...420. Russia, maybe?
As far as the US, it doesn't hold "free Europe (what a joke)", it binds Europe to a subservient status.
“Bullshit.” Back to the troll farm with you.
Its a moot point anyway. When the United States blow up Nordstream and ended European access to cheap Russian gas that act of terror ENDED any chance of european re-armament. Factories need energy, lots of it and affordable. Europe will soon be without any industry...
It was most probably Ukraine that destroyed the Nordstream gas pipelines.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/who-blew-up-the-nord-stream-pipeline-suspects-and-theories.html
Some skin divers in a rubber dinghy, lol.
Seriously?
Did you read the linked article? Sounded pretty persuasive to me.
Seymour Hirsch was very convincing.
Hirsch is a leftist idiot renowned for his inaccuracies.
I believe that article as much as i believe John Kirby.
It was most likely the Russian gas company. They had already shut the valves feeding the pipelines, but there was a article in the contract that they would have to compensate customers o\for gas not shipped. Consequently, the gas company themselves destroyed the pipelines so they could declare force majeure and not have tp compensate anyone.
Concur with Europeans having no clue about the size of the USA.
During my time as an F-14 FRS instructor at NAS Oceana, we had Brit exchange crews come through as instructors. To a man, the first time they flew a cross-country from Oceana to Miramar, they could not believe how big this country is. One even said, once we got out to Miramar, “We’d be deep into the Soviet Union if we flew this same distance east from Great Britain.”
Going the other way, a few years ago, I had a work trip to the UK. Flew into Heathrow, grabbed a rental car, and headed to Bristol. I had glanced at the map. It looked like roughly half way across the country. I settled in for a long drive. Couple hours later, and I was there. Only 103 miles according to Google maps. I can drive east twice that far and still be in my state...
There was a time when the sun always shined on the British Empire. Today, the realm of Charles III is less than that of Charles II.
It never set on the British Empire because God didn't trust them in the dark.
Now that it's not-so-Great Britain, I think that He is less worried about them having the wherewithal to get into trouble in the first place. :P
May he meet the same fate as Charles I.
Europe is finished. So why bother spending any money on defense instead of enjoying what little time is left? The barbarians will only be meaner if you resist.
I read an article just this morning about a similar issue; the Canadian Navy is apparently in deep trouble. Lack of maintenance, low manning, low recruiting, low budgets, all because Trudeau wants to chase leftist policies, and because they're right here north of the USA, so we'd certainly help them.
But Canada, too, is being invaded, and the "elites" in Toronto either don't care or are aiding the Muslim invaders. Britain is already gone, and Ireland is in the news this week for this very reason. Scandinavia is besieged, Germany has being overrun, and the invaders are coming to Italy. The Italian Navy needs to lay a million mines along the North African coast, and sink every ship that makes it through. And sink/seize the motherships that the NGOs use to transport Libyans to Lampedusa.
I saw that article too. Canada had a fine Navy that kept England afloat in 1940. But then came the Trudeaus.
Well at least stop funding NGO's, that would be a start.
Meanwhile, if you look at the actual demographics of these areas, the notion that they're being "overrun" is ridiculous. Sorry, but I find it very difficult to buy that less than 10% of the population is going to stage a hostile takeover, even if they all wanted too, which I doubt.
Lets make that percentage .000001, just to be safe.
The problems caused by doing that would be far worse than the problems caused by just making them play by the same rules everyone else does. The Finns have done that and they've had fairly minimal issues, IIRC.
What problems? What's the downside of removing this unassimilable mass?
Given that they aren't, in fact, unassimilable (and I notice that you haven't pointed out where I was wrong about the Finns), the premise of your question is false. Please peddle your nonsense elsewhere.
You don't seem up to date with what the Finns are doing (or the Danes & Dutch for that matter). Or the crime issues this unassimilable mass has brought to Nordic countries. Or the definition of assimilation.
List the problems removal will cause.
Swedes are too polite to physically resist, and the Muslims are mostly targeting - and raping - "helpless" women. And Swedish police, like British police, have no intention to actually PUNISHING the criminals. So it doesn't take many "invaders" to terrify the target population.
Eventually, the Swedish men - like Irishmen, this week - will begin to fight back. But by then, it will be a civil war, but the civil authorities, like the Muslim Taoiseach today and the Muslim Mayor of London, will be fighting against the natives and supporting the invaders.
Given that the current Taoiseach of Ireland was born in Ireland, his parents were Catholic immigrants from India, and he's gay and describes himself as non-religious, I think your perceptions and reality are not in alignment with each other.
Being born in Ireland doesn't make him Irish, just another imported cosmopolitan managerial class instrument.
Which, if true, would still not be evidence that he is Muslim.
Didn't say he was Muslim, said he was not Irish. Say something else.
They are a vocal, militant, energized 10% with higher birth rates, who have no desire to assimilate with European cultures.
Western civilization is dead in Europe; just not buried yet. This is an invasion
Based on the NYC Christmas tree lighting last night, we are not far behind unless people start acting to protect their Constitution.
" either don't care"
- that's not it for the current WEF government
"or are aiding the Muslim invaders"
- winner winner chicken dinner
Like in the biblical story, the West sold its scientific and industrial birthright for a bowl of soup.
Nope...its a nice fantasy...but only the USN has this capability. This has all but been publicly admitted. Some Ukranians in a stolen boat is just propaganda fiction for the sheep...
UK can do that sort of thing too.
The water there isn't all that deep. And the USN is far from the only group capable of putting divers in the water.
Deep enough to require specialized gear, in a place were water conditions are a concern and a target requiring very large tonnage of specialized explosives. You load that gear off a ship...not a stolen yacht... We will save the extensive and strange presence of USN air and sea assets in the area before and during vthe attack for another posting....
Very large tonnage of explosives? Why, for Pete's sake? The steel on the pipeline is strong enough to withstand the pressure of the gas, and MAYBE strong enough not to be punctured by an anchor strike, but why should they have made it armored? That would drive up the cost of the pipeline by a few orders of magnitude. No. It wouldn't have taken a ton of explosives, and probably not more than a few hundred pounds, to cause the pipeline to rupture - and then the gas pressure would have done the rest.
Finally the Porch has taken up a tactical question in my area of expertise (I'm an amateur in matters of naval aviation, surface and sub-surface combatants, etc): the Nordstream attack happened in ~230ft of water.
Effectively targeting a pipeline in that depth range objectively requires the following capabilities:
-basic intel/OSINT capability
-basic decompression diving
-moderate underwater survey
-basic small boat competence
-moderate underwater demolitions
-moderate emergency medical plan and logistics (optional based on risk tolerance)
Anyone is free to form their own opinion about how many / which nations (and non-nations) possess the necessary mix, but if you think it's limited to the US you are batshit insane. There are half a dozen civilian wreck diving crews in NJ who could do it with a week of demo training and approvals to buy the right (commercially available) explosive materials.
This is incorrect as we are not blowing a who is some flimsy pipe in a field...but
rather a reinforced structure underwater and buried under the sea bed and
located in a heavily monitored Zone... This would have been no civilian
excursion. This would have taken serious reconnaissance in a well monitored
area and far more specialized explosives then any civilian could muster. But I
really don't need to go farther as the US Government told us they did it...most
embarrassing...
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/a-year-of-lying-about-nord-stream
Forget Hirsch. He has no idea of what he is talking about and his "article" has been thoroughly fisked.
The Bundeswehr short of assault rifles for "political reasons"? This in the country where the assault rifle was invented? I can understand why reliance on the American military started in the wake of WW2 and the advent of the Cold War; a region that saw land, demographics, and culture nearly wiped out in two disastrous wars, faced with a third even more (potentially) devastating war? Sure, let's rely on the Americans, they can do anything! And I guess if you let the Americans worry about the Big Bad Bear to the east, well, you can concentrate on other things. Wow. Tangled web. Thanks for this post!
A German on a military weapons forum said there was a lot of BS in the article. Said lots more rifles than that, also lots of troops use MP7 rather than rifles.
The U. S. is, and has been, a maritime nation. It is through a robust Navy that we best support world stability. Let the regions take care of themselves while we worry about security and free commerce at sea. That is also compatible with a robust far East policy.
Our "robust Navy" is in decline, and we can't maintain our ships. Can't, or won't; the difference isn't important. Sal himself has noted that American ships these days are embarrassingly rusty.
Won't certainly *feels* worse than can't.
I totally agree. The point of my post was that we need to get off our rear ends and focus on reinvigoratiing our Navy. It has been, and is, the key to global stability. Without freedom of the seas, the world economy and all that goes with it is in jeopardy. Wwe need yards, Sailors, and more ships---soon.